It would be impossible to put context to Sleepercar’s debut album West Texas without mentioning At The Drive-In. Regardless of how much lead singer Jim Ward would probably like his new project to viewed as something entirely separate from his past endeavors, he will forever live in the shadow of the mess the world has come to regard as “ATDI.” This inability to step out from underneath the shadow that his former band has cast upon his career is truly a shame; Sleepercar is something completely separate and all together sonically different, from At The Drive In, who in this writer’s humble opinion, have become quite the overrated band. (This review, however, is not the place for this analysis.) In fact, Sleepercar carries little traces of Ward’s more recent effort, Sparta, and stands entirely on its own. In fact, the only song on the album that sounds close to anything recorded on Wiretap Scars is “Sound the Alarm” due to guitar structure and not to the song as a whole. However, without both At The Drive-In and Sparta, Sleepercar would not have come to be.
West Texas consists of songs written by Ward as early as his days in At The Drive-In and became a more focused project of his during Sparta’s final tour but never a part of Sparta; with one listen to album’s opener, “A Broken Promise,” and it is easy to understand why. The opening chords chug like a train out of your speakers, or headphones if you prefer, and the drums beat in order to tap your feet.
Sleepercar is, all things considered, a country band, in the same vein as Lucero and the Old 97’s. And unlike the numerous “alt-country” acts who have sprung up recently, Sleepercar doesn’t wink their eye at the crowd as if to say, “Hey, we know it’s not cool to play real country music, that’s why we’re alternative country.” No, West Texas is what country music has become like to a generation who seems to think that “country” music is a bunch of red-necks with too many beers in their stomach and not enough sense in their heads. In fact, country music isn’t country music any more; it has gone the way of other once credible genres and become filled with over the top “artists” who forgot a main component of making music, at least to most people, was songwriting. I’m looking at you, Toby Keith and Taylor Swift.
However, none of this is to say that Sleepercar is going to save country music, or that West Texas is the record that could bring credibility back to country music to those cynical individuals who think country is unhip (and nobody finds things “unhip” unless they are, self-decidedly, hip themselves). In fact, the album is somewhat unimpressive coming from a man who once was in a band that is now worshipped by thousands of skinny boys who weren’t even around to experience the band when it existed. What I am trying to say is that Sleepercar could be something quite impressive with a bit more fine-tuning and a better marketing strategy. Opening for such mammoth acts as Coldplay could have been a shoe-in for Jim Ward to skyrocket into real stardom but with a lackluster stage show and a couple of stellar songs surrounded by a handful that leave something to be desired, the band remains within its quiet niche of Midwestern college radio rather than a national success.
Perhaps Jim Ward should take some lessons from Chris Martin, who in St Paul, Minnesota, as I’m sure he did everywhere his multi-platinum band preformed, made the stage his playground to accompany the kingdom he built by his ability to write songs that make you fucking weep like a baby. Maybe then Sleepercar would become a household name, but probably not.
(Note: Yes, I do find Coldplay to be the only major label, multi-platinum super-group to be credible despite their associate with frat-boys and sorority girls. They write inexplicably beautiful songs that I would have played at my wedding if I were straight and thought marriage was a good idea.)
Release Date: April 22nd, 2008
Record Label: Doghouse
Stand Out Tracks: A Broken Promise, Wednesday Nights, Stumble In
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